SPOTLIGHT ON MARK W. SCERBO Mark W. Scerbo, Ph.D. is Professor of Human Factors Psychology at Old Dominion University and an Adjunct Professor of Health Professions at Eastern Virginia Medical School. He began his research career at AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1980 studying text editing behavior. He then attended graduate school at the University of Cincinnati and received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology. In 1987, he managed a human factors research laboratory at AT&T and then joined the faculty at Old Dominion University in 1990 where he teaches courses in experimental methods, sensation and perception, human factors psychology, and human factors methods.  Dr. Scerbo is a Fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, has more than 160 scientific publications and currently serves as an Associate Editor for the journals, Simulation in Healthcare and Human Factors. Dr. Scerbo has more than 30 years of experience researching and designing systems and displays that improve user performance in academic, industrial, and military work environments. He has studied hazardous states of awareness, physiological correlates of cognitive performance under +Gz stress, behavioral and physiological factors that affect human-system interaction, virtual environments, and adaptive interfaces. He has applied human factors methods to the assessment of fetal heart rate images and the evaluation of virtual reality systems for orthopedic bone pinning and craniotomy procedures. Dr. Scerbo’s current research addresses cognitive workload in laparoscopic surgery, cognitive factors that impact standardized patients, mental models and transitions in care, human spatial abilities in ultrasonography, and the application of virtual reality for improving surgical judgment and decision making.  Dr. Scerbo is also an avid promoter of science over pseudoscience and is a past president of the New York Area Skeptics. He has also taught a course in Investigating Modern Pseudoscience with colleagues from each department in the College of Sciences at ODU.

A “skeptical” phrenology reading at the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, in St. Paul, MN.

Larger than life perceptual distortions of depth in an Ames room.